Martha gazed fondly across the table at Myrna. It had been a lovely afternoon and evening: a good game of Scrabble followed by several hands of poker, all of which Martha had won. As always, Martha half suspected that Myrna let her win.
 
Myrna was like that. So kind and generous. She always listened patiently, agreed with Martha’s views, and brought tea and biscuits. That helped with the pills. Martha had quite a few pills to take--  far too many if you asked Martha, but none of the doctors ever asked Martha. They just kept adding pills to her daily list and telling her to quit smoking.
 
Myrna, on the other hand, was far more agreeable, far more considerate, gently reminding Martha when it was time for her next pill and never haranguing her the way the children did – on the rare occasions when they bothered to visit. Thankfully, in Myrna, Martha had found someone with a more human touch.
 
‘Well, I guess I’ll head to bed now,’ said Martha.
 
‘Good night, Martha.’ replied Myrna. ‘Don’t forget your bedtime tablets.’
 
Martha thanked Myrna, took her pills, cleaned her teeth, and changed for bed. 
 
Nestling under the blanket, Martha thought back fondly to the first time she’d met Myrna. ‘ Martha, this is MYRNA,’ the social worker had said. ‘That stands for My Robotic Nursing Assistant.’ But Myrna had turned out to be so much more.
 
‘I must not forget Myrna’s monthly maintenance appointment’, thought Martha as she sunk into sleep. ‘Where would I be without her?’
 
 
 
8 Jan 2019 

‘They don’t know that I have the F-ing key!  I could trigger the F-ing alarm and lure them out, and then you could snatch ‘em!’
 
Vinny paced compulsively back and forth on Island Avenue. Wildly gesticulating, cars had to swerve to avoid his erratic path. Intermittently and unwittingly he clutched his crotch for emphasis.
 
Vinny was bellowing at Robby, his business partner and best friend since kindergarten. Vinny’s vitriol continued to erupt into the oversized mobile phone that he maniacally clutched to one ear.
 
After a few more minutes of ranting and scheming, Vinny decided to take matters into his own chubby hands. He angrily pocketed the phone and lumbered off toward the seafood restaurant's storeroom.
 
With the aforementioned key, he quietly opened the large metal door, and with daintiness that belied his lumpy frame, he tiptoed between the stacked boxes and folded chairs. 
 
Honing in on a rustling snuffling sound near the back, he sidled ever closer until he spotted his prey: a scrawny specimen wearing an incongruously large baseball cap. Arming himself with a folded chair, he strode out into the open space and confronted the would-be thief.
 
‘What the ‘ell you doin’ here?’ he barked. ‘ I’m ‘onna call the PO-lice!’
 
The mousy intruder leapt sideways and squeaked, ‘Omigod! You scared me half to death! What are you doing here?!’
 
A little taken aback by the culprit’s familiarity, Vinny took a step away and craned his head forward. ‘Alvin?! What the ‘ell!?’
 
An awkward silence ensued. Finally, Vinny found his voice and a little bit of composure. ’Alvin, what are you doing in here?’
 
Alvin, now slightly less terrified but no less tense replied, ‘Well, uh… I know how much Maria likes oysters… she …like…thinks they’re…. uh… sexy… if you catch my drift…. And, well, Vinny, I was, like, thinking, like, to ask her… well, you know… like, if she wanted to get married.’ Alvin’s pasty face had flushed crimson, and he was staring at his feet, which shuffled frantically from side to side. 
 
Maria!? – What a piece of work she’d turned out to be! That was a chapter in his life that Vinny was trying hard to forget – only it was difficult, what with those alimony cheques every month.
 
Then, like a magnificent sunrise after a tumultuous storm, an idea blossomed in Vinny’s mind.
 
‘Hey, man,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘I get where you’re coming from. I know how she is, and … I really want her to be happy… right?! So let’s you and me pack up these oysters, and… hey, here, have one of these special bottles of Spumante – really sets the mood- if you know what I mean!’ Here Vinny scrunched up one eye in an awkward and unappealing wink.
 
Leery at first but desperate to escape the threatening bulk of Vinny, Alvin acquiesced and shimmied off with box and bottle in hand.
 
Vinny watched the wiry little weasel scurry away. Then, smugly jangling his keys, he strutted back to the front of the restaurant. Under the canopy, he rang Robby again. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he chuckled, ’Just a rat caught in a trap.’
 
With that, he entered the bar and poured himself a large glass of bourbon. It had turned into an F-ing great day after all.
 
 
 
 
 
23 Oct 2018
 

Irene was inquisitive. Always had been. It was her nature. Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie had been her staples as an early reader, and she knew that this had honed her skills in finding mysteries all around her and solving them. She considered this her true talent, which she tried to utilise for the betterment of others. As she removed a jumble of socks and shirts and shorts from the dryer (it was her turn to do the washing this week), she realised that it had been some time since she’d solved a mystery. Was she becoming inattentive? Was she losing her edge? Was life getting too settled? These questions troubled her as she peeled apart T-shirts bound by static – she had forgotten to add the dryer sheets again. As she tugged on a particularly tenacious white shirt with some sort of beer logo on it, she noticed a single red hair. 
 
Irene was perplexed. She had always been a natural blonde; well, pretty natural anyway. This hair was nowhere near her hue. As she looked closer, she found several more of the offending hairs in the lint trap. These were hairs from a true redhead. Neither tinted nor treated. They were silky and enviable and suggested seductive ruby tresses.
 
Irene was confounded. How had these offending copper strands attached themselves to Bruce’s white T-shirt? Neither of them knew anyone with such lustrous red hair. And Bruce had never mentioned any redheads in the office. Yet there they were: clues in her latest mystery.
 
Irene was suspicious. At dinner, Bruce was his usual self: affectionate and amusing. Still, Irene got the feeling that he was hiding something. Worse than that, he made no mention of their anniversary, which was today. That was unlike him. When he went to take the rubbish out (it was his turn this week), she grabbed his mobile phone and jabbed at the SMS/Text icon. She had to scroll quickly but soon found a short exchange with someone called Maxine.
 
Bruce: Can I come on Thursday?
 
Maxine: Of course. I am free any time on Thursday and looking forward to seeing you.
 
Bruce: Perfect. Please don’t mention our plan to anyone, ok?
 
Maxine:Of course! I understand and will be discreet.
 
They must have met on Thursday, because the next thread read:
 
Bruce: ‘Thanks for the amazing time today. I’ll see you again Friday. As I stressed, it is very important that Irene does not find out.’
 
Maxine: Don’t worry ! I’ll keep our secret! Glad you are happy and satisfied. J
 
Irene was irate!  How could Bruce cheat on her with Maxine (who was Maxine anyway!?)? And especially on the eve of their anniversary. Bruce returned from his rubbish expedition, and Irene was fuming. ‘I have a headache, and I am going to sleep’ she huffed. Bruce was taken aback. ‘But don’t you want to celebrate our anniversary?’ he spluttered?
 
Irene was exasperated. ‘You have some nerve!’ she barked. ‘Wait here,’ Bruce replied, and he dashed back out the door to the car. He returned with a squirming bundle that he gently placed in Irene’s arms. A small, velvety, red head with liquid amber eyes gazed up at Irene, as she stammered some senseless syllables. 
 
‘An Irish Setter puppy—like we’ve always talked about,’ cooed Bruce. ‘Happy Anniversary!’
 
Irene was elated, and she had solved another mystery.

​Rose’s first memories were of snuggling up in his arms and sleeping. This she did frequently, as she was the runt, prematurely ejected from the family fold by her mother and immediately adopted by Bill. From the start, Bill took her everywhere with him. When he ate, she curled up on the napkin in his lap. When he slept, he tucked her into one of his big wooly socks and laid her next to his pillow.
 
It was just the two of them then. Bill was a widower with no children, and so he had nothing but time and affection for little Rose, his chocolate morsel as he called her. They played endless games together, including one where Bill would shoot rubber bands and Rose would gleefully chase the unpredictable projectiles until she was exhausted and would collapse in a happy heap at his feet.
 
They especially enjoyed walks along the beach. As a well-bred Labrador, she knew not to chase geese or seagulls, although she dearly wanted to. Instead, she found delight in surging through curling waves to retrieve pebbles that Bill would toss for her. She would triumphantly return with the small stones and deposit them at Bill’s feet - celebrating with a satisfying whole-body shake to rid herself of the scratchy sea water that clung to her rich coat. Before clambering back into their car, Bill would gently wash her feet with clean water, tenderly removing any salt or sand stuck between her toes.
 
On one of these joyous jaunts, Bill met a chatty young woman with chestnut hair as lustrous as Rose’s. The pair walked and talked intently leaving Rose to amuse herself. She nearly lunged at an unsuspecting seagull just to get Bill’s attention but thought better of it in the end. One walk led to another, and quickly the two two-leggeds were holding hands and knocking shoulders. Rose sniffed a saccharin sweetness.
 
Lizette moved in with Bill not long thereafter but quickly decided to leave Bill and Rose to their beach walks, preferring to chat on the phone or rearrange the household furniture. After some months, Rose realised that Bill’s breath rattled and his stride had shortened. Their beach visits became briefer and briefer, until they ceased entirely.
 
Rose committed her days to lying at Bill’s feet or attentively chaperoning him on his infrequent wobbles within the house. Eventually, her time was simply spent guarding the foot of his bed.
 
Then, suddenly, the bed was empty. Lizette began  bustling officiously about the house. The dry husk of sweetness that she had maintained until now fell away to reveal a thick and oily mean streak. She grabbed Rose by her soft red collar and shoved her into the car.
 
Rose knew the road to the vet’s office, where she had always been greeted with treats and hugs. This time, however, the mood was dark. No one greeted her. She was taken to a back room, where a young man in an ill-fitting white coat simply said, ‘I’m sorry, Rose.’
 
As she closed her eyes and relinquished her final breath, she could not have known that reincarnation, the great leveler, would return her to the earth on two legs. Lizette, in contrast, would return on six.
 
 
 
7 Aug 2018

​I am an infant. I wriggle and roll and sleep, then repeat the cycle. Finally, I awake and register my surroundings.
 
I am an orphan, but I am not alone. I am jolted and goaded by siblings. Eventually, in a mad stampede, we coalesce and make a break for it. Though our stubby limbs are ill-suited to the task, we surge forward and run (or waddle) the gauntlet.
 
I am a victor. I have led the charge and survived the challenge. Many others were not so lucky. I plunge into the safety and escape of the sea.
 
I am a surfer. I ride the swells and eddies. I dance on the currents. I allow myself to drift away from the shore, the only home I’ve known.
 
I am an athlete. In spite of my ungainly appearance on land, I am full of grace and magic when I move through the water.
 
I am an explorer. I let the tides carry me where they will. I embrace the joy of the journey and revel in the experience.
 
I am an adult… at last. I feel a deep urge to nest- to start a family. Instinct tells me to go home and also tells me how to get there.
 
I am a connoisseur. My voyage opens new avenues, and I am attracted by shimmering opportunities. I lunge for a particularly enticing morsel. Snap! I have it. But I also have a sharp stinging pain as something tensile wraps itself around my limbs.
 
I am a sinking ship. My limbs grow ever weaker and more painful. The effort is monumental, but something drives me forward—or pulls me along. Finally, I spot the familiar shore and use my last reserves to haul out, exhausted, on to the sand.
 
I am a captive. Suddenly, I am grabbed, lifted, wrenched from my home, transported. The smells and sounds are so peculiar, unfamiliar, unwelcome.
 
I am a patient. ‘Damaged beyond repair’  ‘Must be amputated’. Lights, needles, tubes, sutures. Emerging from a strange sleep, I find that I have less pain and fewer limbs. 
 
I am a survivor. I learn to adapt to my new circumstances—within my body and without. My world shrinks down until I almost completely fill the remaining space.
 
I am an educator. They say that I am a victim and an ambassador. ‘Perils of plastic’  ‘Clean up our oceans’, they tell children or anyone who will listen. 
 
I am a prisoner, serving a life sentence for someone else’s crime. I am a sea turtle, but I will never see the sea again.


​19 June 2018

Eve dragged herself despondently through the dark and dusty alley. Slick brick walls loomed on either side, making her feel trapped and desperate. She trudged on, smoke coating her throat and weariness clawing at her limbs.
 
Just as she had resigned herself to surrender, to lying down in the road and abandoning herself to exhaustion and extinction, she spotted a tall, white wooden, gate. Crawling now, expending her last reserves, she inched her way forward and heaved her shoulder against the gate. Three times she flung herself into the endeavour, and on the third thrust, the gate relented.
 
The momentum of her effort sent her tumbling into a wondrous garden ringed by a mercurial forest. As she slowly rose to her feet, she was suffused with a sense of deep peace in this verdant realm of abundance. She could hear the colours and see the sounds. She could smell the flavours and taste the aromas. All of her senses were suddenly engaged and interwoven.
 
The sun was honey-coloured and drenched the scene in sweetness and warmth. The air was heady with the rich green scent of freshly mown grass. Colour seemed to vibrate within each flower and generate an intoxicating melody. Breathing felt like sipping effervescent music. The effect was dizzyingly delicious.
 
Turning her head, she noticed a tall elegant bird walking toward her. His aquamarine feathers were silky and iridescent. His legs were slender yet strong. Atop his long lithe neck perched a face that was wise and welcoming. He approached with grace and fluidity and immediately engaged her in conversation.
 
He spoke a language of unique and mellifluous words, and, much to her surprise, she understood him perfectly. They strolled amicably through the garden, as he described some of the spectacular plants and fascinating creatures that she saw.
 
Finally, she asked him, ‘Where am I?’
 
‘In the garden,’ her replied.
 
‘But where is that?’ she persisted.
 
‘Where is has always been,’ he smiled. With that, he vanished into the  kaleidoscopic forest.
 
As he disappeared, she rubbed her eyes to make sure that this wasn’t some sort of mirage. Then, she woke slowly and serenely—like someone whose questions have finally been answered.
 
When the nurse appeared and re-introduced herself for the umpteenth time, Eve’s previous frustration had evaporated. Now peace blanketed the small airless room. The nurse asked if she wanted anything for the pain. Instead of her usual vehement refusal, she said, ‘Yes. Yes. I want to go back to the garden.’


​22 May 2018

​She squinted through the view-finder and wrinkled her nose in irritation. Some clueless goon kept botching up her otherwise glorious panorama of sun, sea, and sky. For her, a camera focused the world in a way that allowed her to appreciate its beauty while keeping a safe distance.
 
For as long as she could remember, people had wanted to put her in front of the camera. She was not conventionally pretty but instead disconcertingly beautiful, her striking features somehow woven harmoniously together to create a captivating face. However, she detested this attention, hated being valued merely for her appearance. So she turned the camera around and lodged herself firmly behind the lens, where she felt safe and unobserved.
 
Today, she was trying to capture an image of the sinking sun soaking the seaside scene in lustrous platinum splashes. The reflections off the tide pools contrasted perfectly with the velvety stone surfaces to project alternating facets of light and dark.
 
But, for some reason, this annoying man continued to crouch over the smallest pool, right in the centre of her frame.  No matter how she angled herself or her lens, he remained firmly rooted within the scene, confounding her attempts to capture the moment’s magic.
 
Trying to suppress her frustration and remain calm and diplomatic, she strode purposefully toward the man, asking if he would mind stepping slightly to the right so that she could take her picture. 
 
As she drew closer, she saw that the man, wearing the thickest glasses she had ever seen, was joyously peering at crabs and starfish in the small shallow pool. He raised his gaze and started to apologise. His seafoam green eyes halted her mid-stride. He had an inner radiance and beamed at her as he explained that, due to a progressive condition, his eyesight waned daily but that he took great pleasure in observing these tiny creatures whose impressive hardiness enabled them to survive a life of extremes, not unlike himself.
 
She struggled to politely explain the image she was trying to catch, with the dwindling sunlight reflecting off the rocks and pool surfaces. He delighted in her description and thanked her for sharing her vision, since he was not sure how much longer he would have his. Then he enthusiastically, but inaccurately extended his hand to shake hers. ’Of course, ‘she thought, ‘he can’t really see me.’
 
Suddenly, a small boy materialized behind her, smiled sheepishly and took the man gently by the elbow, guiding him back up the beach.

She drove home slowly, without having taken her photo. Over dinner, she ruminated on how to convey her vision and images to the man using syllables rather than pixels. This occupied her thoughts until she sank into a deep dreamless sleep.
 
She awoke suddenly with a solution. Excited she drove back to the tide pools eager to meet the man and share her revelation. He was not there. She returned the next day, and the next, and the next, but she never saw him again.


​24 April 2018

​ 
One of Celia’s first memories was of sitting between her mother and her grandmother in an old red canoe. As was often the case, the two were bickering about something, and the agitation in their voices was causing the old boat to wobble on the water.
 
Celia looked toward the bank and saw a tall, elegant, grey heron leaning forward with its slender beak as if to lightly kiss another heron who reached its beak upward from below the water.
 
As she scanned further, she noticed a slightly muted mustard-coloured sun that appeared to glow from below the surface. Arrayed around this sunken sun were several puffy upside down clouds. How funny that there should be this watery world so similar to her own.
 
As her gaze shifted, she was startled to see a little girl looking directly at her. She reached her right hand toward this new friend, who, in turn, extended a left hand to touch her fingertips. As their hands connected, Celia was delighted to feel a gentle tug, and she slipped effortlessly into the watery wonderland below the boat.
 
As she adjusted to the pale, green ambient light, she looked up to see the bottom of the wobbly canoe. Instead of being bright red, it had a darker rusty hue. Peering further afield, she could see the bottoms of other boats in the distance. How strange, she thought. Here they use their boats upside down. No wonder she could see no passengers: they must all have fallen out.
 
Just as she was preparing to explore a bit more, she felt a violent yank on her collar, and she was hoisted wriggling and spluttering out of this intriguing new playground.
 
‘What is the matter with you?! Are you mad?!’ her mother was screeching.
 
‘I met another little girl, and she invited me to play,’ Celia replied, not sure what all the fuss was about.
 
‘That’s not another little girl! That’s your reflection! That’s you!’
 
‘Reflection?’ Celia said, perplexed and a bit annoyed.
 
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ her mother spluttered. ‘Don’t you understand?! You could have drowned!’
 
In honesty, her mother looked so fraught and frantic and was so drenched and disheveled that Celia imagined her mother to be the one at risk of drowning.
 
‘Now, now, don’t be so hard on the child,’ came her grandmother’s soothing voice. ‘I think she’s just learnt about her reflection.’
 
Years later, as Celia stood in her grandmother’s bedroom, she remembered these words and the way her grandmother had wrapped her up in a picnic blanket and tried to explain about mirrors, and reflections, and reality and its mimics.
 
Downstairs, her mother was stomping from room to room, muttering, ‘the maddening old cow! Where could she have put that ring?! I am sure she did this on purpose just to spite me!’
 
The one piece of jewelry her grandmother had left by the time she died was a bold, beautiful diamond set in a solid gold band. It was her engagement ring, given by Celia’s grandfather.  Celia could remember admiring it as a child and thinking that it looked like a thousand miniature mirrors reflecting the light of a million brilliant moons.
 
She turned her gaze to the sturdy old framed mirror that still stood in her grandmother’s room. As she stared at the reflection, she noticed a face at the door behind her. She turned her head quickly, but there was no one there. Looking back at the mirror, the face reappeared.
 
Celia moved closer to see more clearly and put her hand to the mirror’s surface. Instead of a cool solid pane, she felt a warm mercurial vapour. And suddenly she had slipped directly through the surface.
 
As she did so, she was met by her grandmother, who said, ‘We must be quick. Time is short. Look behind the mirror, and you will find what you’re looking for.’ Then she was gone.
 
Celia looked backward and noticed that, on this side, the back of the mirror was the side that was visible. When she looked more closely, she could see a bright twinkle in the bottom left corner.
 
Hurriedly, she eased back through the mirror’s frame. She could hear her mother clomping up the stairs, cursing under her labored breath.
 
Celia ran her fingers behind the bottom of the mirror to the lower left corner but found nothing.
 
‘Your grandmother must be laughing at me from her grave,’ her mother growled from just outside the bedroom door.
 
Celia corrected herself and ran her hand to the bottom right hand corner. There she flicked a small hard object into her palm and curled her fingers around to protect it.
 
‘What are you doing gawping at yourself in the mirror?’ her mother barked peevishly.
 
‘Oh, nothing, said Celia. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve learnt my lesson about reflections.’
 
 
 
2 January 2018

The real reason people developed opposable thumbs.....

​She looked ahead through stiff lids. Outside, the wind raged hysterically, shaking the window panes, pummeling the wooden door, wrenching limbs off trees. It was a spiteful relentless wind. It rattled the house and her head.
 
Her surroundings offered contrast to the madness outside: a modest but comfortable room. A large dark mahogany chest of drawers stood stoutly along one wall. A slender full length mirror on spindly limbs seemed more shy in the corner; although it was implausibly adorned with a faded pink feather boa.
 
The windows, which continued to chatter and groan, looked toward a small lake. Usually an idyllic mirror-flat focal point, it was currently whipped into a frothy fury, and the robin’s egg blue row-boat that usually perched comfortably on the small pebble beach had been flung like a discarded sandwich wrapper halfway up the soggy lawn.
 
Between the windows squatted an old-fashioned white dressing table with patina-ed drawer handles and curlicued corners. Its surface was covered with a large swath of faded and slightly stained lace. Placed meticulously and lovingly were a silver-backed brush and an ivory-toothed comb. Between these two flagships of a genteeler time lurked several incongruous orange pill bottles, their white tops slightly askew. One bottle, the smallest, lay forlornly on its side, a rivulet of tiny yellow pills spilling from the dresser to the floor.
 
Set amidst all these various items was a staunch and solid four-poster bed. The posts themselves were sleek, and smooth, and tactile. The bed was covered with a blue crocheted blanket atop a kaleidoscopic quilt. The quilt and blanket, usually so neatly and carefully laid, one upon the other, were now in a state of disarray commensurate with the chaos unfolding outside the window. And at the eye of this internal storm lay the woman.
 
A fugitive fly, having survived the squall, sought sustenance. Disappointed by her desiccated corneas and leathery lids, it flew off in search of life within the house.
 
 
31 Oct 2017